


Going Through The Unimaginable

by FortySevens



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A Force Ghost Cameo (But Not The One You Think), Angst, DameRey, Developing Relationship, Everyone Has A Lot Of PTSD, F/M, Finn is a good bro, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Keeping Time In Space Is Hard, Leia Ships It Too, Poe Dameron is a Millennium Falcon Fanboy, Stories of Failure, The miracle of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-26 15:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13239033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortySevens/pseuds/FortySevens
Summary: It’s a long ten days to the other side of the Outer Rim, and the Millennium Falcon is full to bursting.A lot can happen when living in such close quarters.*Post-TLJ, so be aware of spoilers*





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> You give me 10 seconds of Damerey interaction, I give you thirty pages of post-movie nonsense. 
> 
> Title from Hamilton’s It’s Quiet Uptown.
> 
> Prompt of the chapter from [The Fake Redhead.com](https://thefakeredhead.com/tfrs-prompt-library/)
> 
> Number 141 “You know what? I’m going to take my spaceship and hide out on Mars until this whole war thing blows over.”

**Day Zero**

 

The high of surviving by the skin of their teeth plummets in the hours after making their unscathed escape from Crait, headed to a set of coordinates Leia passed to Chewbacca while Rey was getting acquainted with the remaining members of the Resistance-turned-Rebellion, BB-8 chirping excitedly at her heels.

 

One member, in particular, stands out a little more than the others.

  
There’s something about Poe Dameron that rings very, _very_ familiar, and as Rey retreats to the cockpit for some privacy, she tries not to puzzle out exactly what it is, because it’s been a _really_ long few weeks and all she wants to do is anything _but_ think for a long, long while.

 

After all, it’s not like they don’t have time.

 

Looking out as the starts fly by in flickering streaks for white and blue, Rey sits in Chewie’s seat, because it’s large and easier to curl up with her arms around her bent knees than it is in the pilot’s seat. And she refuses to look too long at the pilot’s seat—her seat now—because she doesn’t want to think about the extraordinary smuggler who commanded this ship into galactic legend and died at the hands of his only—

 

_Damn it Rey, don’t go down that path!_

 

She sighs, scrubs her scarred fingertips over her eyes—they’re puffy and swollen and her head has been throbbing since—well, ever since Snoke cracked her mind in half looking for the island Luke had spent so many years hiding out in on Ahch-To. Her chest aches from the recent memory, of how she screamed herself hoarse and tried and tried to stop whatever creature Snoke was from getting to the information, but failed miserably.

 

She failed so, so miserably.

 

With a shudder, she focuses on a flicker in the distance and orders her disobeying brain to stop thinking, because it feels like everyone—well, everyone save Leia, maybe—is breaking down, cracking at the seams, and she can’t afford to be one of them.

 

Not until they find somewhere to land.

  
And maybe not even then. Not with the legacy suddenly weighing down on her shoulders.

 

Rey wants to know how Leia does it, how she handles it all with such grace.

 

But she also doesn’t.

 

She rubs her face again, mumbles under her breath that she needs to stop wallowing.

 

Back on Jakku, she couldn’t afford to just take as much time as she wanted to indulge in the misery of her life, and just because she’s somewhere other than her AT-AT and has a slightly better guarantee of something to eat and that she’s going to live another few days, it doesn’t mean she can just—stop.

 

There’s too much to take in and there’s no time.

 

There’s never going to be enough time for this.

 

Rey tries to ignore the footsteps that thud from somewhere outside the cockpit, because it’s just a noise that she’s going to have to get used to in the coming days—there’s really not much by way of privacy on a ship with so many people loaded onto it, especially down in the cargo bay and smuggling compartments, where they’re camped out with the few blankets and piles of bedding they’ve managed to salvage.

 

But then the footsteps stop, and Rey feels the burn of eyes on the back of her neck for a long time before whoever’s behind her raps their knuckles against the side of the hatch.

 

She lifts her chin off her knees and turns, “Hello,” she says, trails off because she doesn’t know what else to say.

 

For obvious reasons, small talk was never a thing she picked up while living on Jakku.

 

Very likely without noticing her social ineptitude, Poe takes a half-step inside the cockpit, but stops for some reason and shoves his hands into the pockets of his fatigues, “I figured someone should do a round, check in on everyone,” he said, voice low.

 

It’s late—ship’s night—but it’s better than sleeping, that’s for sure.

 

Rey rests her cheek on her knees and shrugs with the shoulder that’s not still stinging from the wound from that member of Snoke’s Red Guard, “I’ll be all right.”

 

That much is—probably close to true.

 

She expects Poe to take her word and move on, but instead he takes another half-step closer, stalls and looks around with an awe that blooms across his face and lights his eyes.

 

It’s not unlike how he looked a few hours ago when he walked up and introduced himself to her, like she didn’t know exactly who she was and he her, “Uh,” he blinks and finally looks directly at her. “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

 

The title draws a halfhearted smile from her, and Poe’s answering grin tells her it’s the reaction he was looking for. She unfurls one arm from around her legs and gestures to the pilot’s seat, smothers her growing grin in her knees when Poe goes a little pale, rocks back on his heels like he’s going to be struck down by the Force Ghost of Han Solo for even thinking about sitting in his seat.

 

To his credit, Poe shakes out of his stunned hero worship of the legendary vehicle long enough to finally commit to stepping in.

  
When he sits down, he takes a deep breath and runs his palms over the armrests, takes another breath to gather himself before he settles back against the tattered cushions, and Rey smothers another laugh against her knees.

 

“I actually called her garbage,” she blurts from out of nowhere, but can’t seem to stop rambling.

 

Poe looks away from the lights flashing on the consoles that indicate that the hyperdrive is functioning properly, and he tilts his head in her direction in curiosity, wordlessly urges her to continue.

 

“When Finn and BB-8 and I were escaping the First Order, back on Jakku.”

 

His brows hike to his hairline, which only serves to enhance the dark circles under his eyes, “You called the Millennium Falcon _garbage_?”

 

Because he sounds just _so offended_ , Rey rolls her eyes at him, “I didn’t know what it was at the time.”

 

Poe lets out the kind of laugh that sounds more like he’s surprised he’s still capable of making a sound like that than he is actually laughing, and Rey shifts in the overlarge seat to face him head-on, “Are _you_ doing all right?” She asks, because she hasn’t heard much about what the Resistance got up to between leaving D’Qar and picking up the remains of the Resistance on Crait, but considering their small number, she knows it’s got to be bad.

 

In the rush, she remembers she overheard someone say something about Poe being lucky to be alive, like it’s something specific to _him,_ something special about what he went through during this whirlwind of a day.

 

Rey wants to ask, but she also doesn’t.

 

Instead, she watches Poe’s throat work as he grapples for something to say, until he finally slumps back in the seat and scrubs a hand over his face, “I’m fine.”

 

She doesn’t believe him for a second, but the look on his face is one that asks her not to press.

 

So, she won’t.

 

For the moment.

 

After a minute, Poe drops his hand and looks at her, nods in her direction with his chin, “Someone should take a look at that.”

 

Confusion rushes through her until Rey realizes that he’s talking about the furrow burned into her shoulder. She runs careful fingers over it, flinches when it stings and something red and blood-like oozes against her skin, but she’s had worse, “It’ll keep,” she thinks about the most injured of their party, of Finn hovering over the sleeping pad in the galley. “We should save our supplies for Rose.”

 

“Bacta gel’s no good on a concussion, and the last thing we need is for that to get infected,” Poe insists, and he taps his palms against the armrests before pushing back to his feet. “Stay put, I’ll be right back.”

 

And he’s gone before Rey can speak a word in protest, because it’s _really_ not that bad—she hurt herself much worse in her years growing up as a scavenger, has the scars scattered over her skin to prove it, because she couldn’t imagine being able to afford anything close to real medicine, let alone have the easy access to what they have now.

  
_Priority access_ , even.

 

The thought sticks heavy in her throat, because all she really is Rey from Nowhere, a nobody from Jakku who can levitate rocks with her brain.

 

With a huff, she shuffles in her seat so Poe can reach her far shoulder when he gets back, because he’s probably not going to take her halfhearted refusals for an answer, and she lets her head fall against the cushions and stares off into the distance.

 

For a second, just a flicker of a moment, she thinks she sees the shadow of Han Solo piloting the Falcon, and she vaguely remembers Luke mentioning something about the impressions people leave in the places that they spend a lot of time in, but still—she’s probably just imagining things because she’s long since tipped past bone-weary exhaustion.

 

No one, Force Ghost or otherwise, has any reason to reveal themselves to a no-name maybe-Jedi like her.

 

Rey tucks her arms tighter around her legs to try to stave off that empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she curls up as small as she can, hisses when it pulls at the burned skin high on her arm. The pain only serves to bring her back to the high of fighting _alongside_ Ben, seeing how good it could be—until he asked her to stand by him in his attempts to subjugate the galaxy.

 

Like hells she will.

 

“You with me?”

 

Poe’s voice startles her from her thoughts, and Rey finds that not only did he return without her noticing, but he’s looking down at her with concern in his dark eyes as he holds a medpack in his hands.

 

But there’s also—something else in his gaze that she can’t quite pick out.

 

It’s a bit unsettling, if she’s honest.

 

He doesn’t wait for her response, just sits down one the edge of the pilot’s seat with a little less fanfare than the first time—the impression of Han Solo disappears when he does, but Rey is still _really_ sure that it’s not really him—and he opens the pack, digs around for the tub of bacta gel that’s stocked in all the Resistance-issue kits.

 

Rey shifts again, smushes the side of her face into the cushion, and Poe’s hands are gentle as he smooths the cool gel over the burn—it tingles, but Rey forces herself to stay still, takes in the shadows under his eyes and the way they’re resolutely focused on the wound—but there’s something so familiar about the way he’s just so slightly _off_.

 

It’s very subtle, but it’s there.

 

And then it hits her that _something else_ happened to Poe very recently, something that explains why he won’t meet her eye.

 

Poe retreats a little, one hand moving to the pack on his lap for the roll of clean bandages, and Rey thinks she surprises them both in equal measures when she reaches out and clasps his wrist, stalling him.

 

“I-” she clears her throat, and Poe finally looks at her, and as hard as it is to hold the gaze, she does, because at the very least, he deserves that from her. “He did the same thing to me.”

 

For a moment, no one moves, barely breathes, and Rey feels the fluttering of his rapid-fire pulse under her fingertips. All around them, stars streak by as they retreat to a nameless somewhere where they can lick their wounds, heal, and regroup.

  
Finally, Poe breaks away from her gaze and looks down at her hands, but Rey doesn’t move her fingers from his pulse. His throat works, and she sees his jaw tick before he grounds out, “It hurt.”

 

For a pilot like him—and Rey remembers the whispers she heard while sitting at Finn’s bedside in the short moments before she left to find Luke so she could continue the journey she began when she saves this man’s droid in the wastes of Jakku—that has to be an understatement.

 

“I don’t think there’s anything worse than going through,” her throat locks up when she tries to say the words, so she swallows and tries to go about it another way. “Through _that._ And not all of us—I wouldn’t, I _won’t-_ ”

 

She breaks off with a huff and looks sidelong at the streaking stars, has no idea what she’s trying to say.

 

But Poe gives her an out, drops the bandages and covers her hand with his broad, warm palm, “I know.”

 

And he sounds like he does. Like he believes in her.

 

Rey’s not sure what the hells she’s supposed to do with something like that.

 

Instead of talking about it more—she doesn’t want to, and she has a feeling he wants to even less—Poe slides his palm back, smooths his fingers over her knuckles before the warmth and gentle pressure disappears. He reaches back for the bandages and wraps them around the wound, which is already on its way to healing.

 

The lump in her throat _hurts_ when she tries to swallow around it, tries to force out the words she rarely had reason or opportunity to speak on Jakku, “Thanks.”

 

Poe’s smile is a little tilted, but he finally leans back, out of her space and flips the lid on the medpack before dropping it on the floor between them, “Any time,” he turns the chair so it faces out to the stars, and the blue light makes him look like some ghostly apparition. “You mind if I sit with you?”

 

Rey shifts so she’s not putting all her weight on her hip, looks back out to the stars like Poe is and lets her hands slip off her knees. She clasps them carefully over her belly and lets her feet drop to the floor, one after the other, “Not at all.”

 

\--

**Day One**

 

The hours stretch out like years.

 

After living her entire life on a world where she tracked the time by the movement of Jakku’s sun and moons, it’s difficult to know when is _when_ , while they’re barreling through space. Growing up around the spacers who stopped through Niima Outpost, Rey’s heard stories about how they’d standardize time to their homes, but even if Rey knew what time it was on that world, it’s not like Jakku was the world she was born on.

 

Even though it’s only ten days to wherever they’re going, it could be weeks since they left Crait, and Rey doesn’t know if it’s even important.

 

Her stomach finally draws her out of the nest she made in Chewie’s seat in the cockpit—Poe left after some point after BB-8 came by, bleeping in concerning about, well, _something_. Rey hadn’t been paying attention, had fallen into some bastardized form of meditation that stopped her from thinking about how Ben held his hand out to her and—

 

 _Enough_.

 

She vaguely remembers Poe squeezing her shoulder on his way out, his touch jolting through her skin, which brought her out of the buzz her mind turned into, and she thinks she mumbled something that she probably intended to be a goodnight.

 

If there’s even a nighttime out in space.

 

The galley is blessedly quiet at whatever hour this is—Rose is still unconscious in the bunk and Finn rests on the desk below her, snoring with his head lolled against the padding, ready to move when she finally wakes—but Rey is so intent on the stacks of rations she has to pick through that she doesn’t realize she’s not the only being in the room that’s awake until she hears someone whisper, “ _That’s her, isn’t it?_ ”

 

It’s a voice she hasn’t heard before, so her first instinct is to go for her lightsaber, but—right.

 

That’s not a viable option anymore, and the blaster Han gave her is, well, she should probably track that down. They’re safe for now, but she should still at the very least know _where_ it is.

 

First though—

 

She turns slowly, and finds Leia sitting in the banquette.

 

But she isn’t the one who spoke.

 

No, that would have to be the ghostly visage of a woman closer to Rey’s age than Leia’s, and immediately, Rey forgets absolutely everything she previously assumed about Force Ghosts.

 

This one is wearing a long gown that’s probably supposed to be blue like the light that glows around her body, and her hair falls over her shoulders in neat waves. Her hands lay flat on the table, inches away from Leia’s, like at one point she reached out to touch them, but at the last second remembered that she couldn’t and left them there.

 

And if Rey looks really close, she thinks she sees a ring of bruises around the woman’s neck.

 

“Um,” Rey breaks off, coughs and looks down at her feet. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

 

“ _Of course you didn’t_ ,” the woman—ghost, _whatever she is_ —says. “ _Please join us?”_

 

Rey blinks and looks at Leia, who nods and lifts one hand in a sort of gesture to the—yes, it’s easiest to just call her a woman too, “Rey, this is Padme Amidala, my biological mother. She passed away the day Luke and I were born.”

 

“Oh-kay.”

 

Because she has her priorities in order, even as weird as this conversation is bound to get, Rey grabs a ration bar from the top of the stack and unwraps it as she sits down, perching on the edge so Leia sits between her and Padme, “Do you-” she breaks off and takes another bite, because it seems that she really is hungry after all. “Do you visit often?”

 

“ _I try to let the living do just that_ ,” Padme says, diplomatic. “ _But after everything that’s happened, I thought it might be a good time to offer counsel._ ”

 

She doesn’t elaborate for whom the counsel is, and Rey has a feeling that it’s not Leia.

 

Rey looks at her in askance, and Leia smiles, wry, “Padme served two terms as the Queen of Naboo, and then continued her public service in the old Republic’s Senate. She did quite a bit of undercover work during the Clone Wars, as well. I was about your age when I discovered she was one of the founding members of the original Rebellion, along with my father, Bail.”

 

“ _The Delegation of 2000_ ,” Padme says, fond, but there is a profound sadness in her eyes. “ _It was a time not unlike the one you live in now, Rey. There was much failure, and there were many times where I felt like I was helpless to stop the Emperor’s machinations_.”

 

The bite of ration bar sits heavy in Rey’s throat, and she holds her breath until the feeling passes, “I thought I knew what I was doing,” she says without thinking of the words. “I thought I could help Ben turn back to the light.”

 

And then she flinches, because how can she explain this to the people who are _actually Ben’s family?_

 

“I don’t know why I thought I could manage to do what,” she swallows hard when her throat tightens up at the memory of Ben, his lightsaber, and how it stuck out of—“What _Han_ couldn’t even do.”

 

Tears sting at her eyes, and Rey looks down at what looks like a blaster burn that’s scarred into the table. She misses the long look that Padme shares with Leia before Padme shifts, props more of her ghostly arms against the tabletop, “ _Rey, have you heard of a man called Anakin Skywalker?_ ”

 

Rey looks at Leia, like this might be a trick question because he and Luke have the same last name, but she just gestures for Rey to answer.

 

“No.”

 

“ _What about Darth Vader?_ ”

 

She tilts her head toward Leia in askance again, but her face is an impassive mask, though Rey does think she sees a flicker of pain in her eyes, so she turns back to Padme and nods her head once, “Of course I know who Darth Vader is.”

 

Padme leans further forward, “ _Can I tell you a story?”_ She goes on before Rey can respond. “ _About when I had hoped that I—I and my unborn children—could be enough to turn a man against the dark side, and when I learned the hard way that it would never be enough_.”

 

Rey hears Leia sigh, sees her palm inch closer to Padme’s hands, but doesn’t dare look away from the Force Ghost.

 

\--

Rey’s mind is abuzz and her hands shake as she leaves Leia and Padme alone in the galley sometime later, the ship’s lights dimmed for night.

 

Her heart hurts and her eyes itch and it’s so hard to take in everything Padme told her, the story that very few people in the galaxy have heard, even if it had so much impact on the lives of _every sentient being_ living today.

 

So much failure.

 

But there’s still so much hope too.

 

There’s always hope.

 

Her throat clenches, and she feels more tired than she’s ever been.

 

Rey wipes her eyes and finds tears on her fingertips, stops in the middle of the corridor in attempt to regain her composure.

 

She thinks she’s almost got it, eyes clear when she blinks them open as she turns, intent on returning to the cockpit and her nest, when she hears the sound of rustling echo from around the curved hallway.

 

It turns out to be Poe, and he’s rifling through the part of the big reserve medpack where they keep the stims.

 

“That is a bad idea.”

 

Even to her own ears, her voice sounds weak and unconvincing, but she ignores the way her cheeks go hot and takes another step closer.

 

Poe startles, and she sees him reach for the sidearm in the holster strapped to his thigh before he looks at her and a moment later actually _sees_ her. He lets his hand drop uselessly at his side, avoids meeting her gaze, “I don’t want to talk about it Rey. Just go get some rest.”

 

Now, Rey knows that she’s overwhelmed and overwrought and shouldn’t care if Poe has a self-destructive tendency or two—he’s a pilot, of course he does, and she knows she has a few bad habits of her own—but she shakes her head and steps up next to him, wraps her hand around his elbow and draws him away from the medpack.

 

He tries to shake her off, but not very hard, because she doesn’t have to expend any of her meager energy to keep him from reaching for the bottle of pills.

 

What a kriffing mess.

 

“What _you_ need is to rest.”

 

“I can’t rest Rey,” his voice cracks around her name, and he bounces on his heels and looks at the curved ceiling, takes a deep, shaky breath. “Not with what I keep seeing.”

 

Her jaw works as she scowls at him, not that he can see with the way he refuses to look at her, “Stims are not going to help you.”

 

This time, he does shake her hand off, but doesn’t retreat, especially since she’s placed herself between him and the meds he wants, “My pilots, my _friends_ , are dead Rey,” he hisses, and if it was any other time of day or any other place, they’d probably be shouting at each other. “I was in the hanger when Ren blew it up. It happened right in front of me and I was powerless to stop it!”

 

The vein in his forehead bulges, and Rey’s _really_ sure stims are the last thing he needs.

 

She takes a step away from the pack, presses her hand to his chest and forces him toward the opposite wall, “And I’m the one who thought I could turn him,” she snaps back before she loses her energy entirely, drops back against the bulkhead and slides down to the deck. “Nobody won this fight, Poe. We’re just regrouping for the next battle, but that’s not a bad thing.”

 

“Yeah,” he almost spits. “We could be dead.”

 

Rey stares up at him pointedly, and Poe finally sighs, lets his shoulders drop, “I know, I know,” he murmurs, sounds a bit like he’s in pain, but he slides down next to her, close enough that their shoulders are brushing, and the toes of her boot scrape against his calf when he stretches his legs out beyond hers.

 

They sit for a while in a silence that probably shouldn’t be as comforting as it is, before Poe draws his knees back up and drapes his arms over them, props his head against his forearms. Rey bends her knee and nudges the back of his fingers with it, “You know,” she says, words thick in her throat. “A little while ago, someone very wise told me it’s all right not to be okay.”

 

Poe laughs, and it sounds a bit wet, but Rey resolves not to call attention to it, “Oh yeah?” He rasps. “Did that someone get tortured by Darth Vader after watching the Empire destroy her home world in front of her?”

 

“Actually, it was her biological mother.”

 

At that, Poe lifts his head off his arms, eyebrows hiked to his hairline, which shows how his eyes are more than a little red-rimmed, but there’s a bright spark of amusement and curiosity in them anyway.

 

“Yes, you heard that right.”

 

Poe shakes his head, stretches his fingers so he can flick at her knee, and he keeps his fingertips against her instead of moving them back to the tiny, nearly nonexistence gap between their bodies, “You mean Leia Organa’s biological mother, who has been dead for more than fifty years?” She nods. “Come on Rey! You can’t just leave it at that!”

 

It’s probably nothing Leia would _mind_ Poe knowing, and he needs the distraction anyway.

 

So, she tells him.

 

\--

**Day Two**

“ _Why the fark are you sleeping in the hallway, you furless weirdos?_ ”

 

Rey jolts awake, lifts her head off where it apparently fell onto Poe’s shoulder at some point during the night, realizes she’s leaning against his side, bent knee resting against his thigh.

 

Blinking a few times, she finds Chewie’s giant feet inches from theirs, and with a jaw-cracking yawn, she cranes her neck up, up, up, to where the Wookie stares down at them with unmasked judgement in his amused gaze.

 

Next to her, Poe shifts, and Rey hears something in his back pop before he lets out a low groan that reverberates into her side.

 

Above them, Chewie chuffs out another insult.

 

“Good morning to you too, General,” Poe grumbles, voice thick with sleep, and he slides his arm off Rey’s waist, where it apparently ended up while they slept and—

 

Chewie _really_ needs to stop looking at them like that.

 

Stretching out her bent knee and wincing when it cramps up from being in one place all night, Rey rolls her eyes at him, “There something you need?”

 

He warbles out another insult that Rey doesn’t catch, because she’s too busy having a heart attack at the way Chewie suddenly grabs her by the collar and lifts her off the floor. At her side, Poe’s hands shake a little as he’s placed none-to-gently on his feet, scrubs one hand through his hair while he props the other one on the bulkhead for balance.

 

“Thanks, Chewie, I guess,” Rey mumbles, and Poe echoes her sentiment.

 

The Wookie shakes his head, swipes at Poe’s shoulder before he stalks off.

 

“Okay then,” Rey rocks on her heels, rubs one hand over her cheek and finds it wrinkled by the imprint from the seams of Poe’s jacket. “I should probably check on our flight path, make sure we’re still on track.”

 

“ _Like hells you will! Go back to sleep!_ ”

 

Rey chokes on a lap, and Poe bites his lip and shakes his head, “Or, I should check on the hyperdrive. I’m still not sure I got everything Unkar Plutt did to it after he stole the Falcon from Solo.”

 

“ _Try again, hairless baby rat!_ ”

 

This time, Poe’s the one to choke on a laugh, and Rey shrugs, pitches her voice again, “I should,” she trails off, racking her mind, because it’s really too early to be thinking so hard, and maybe she _should—_ no, she’s slept enough. “I should check on Rose and Finn?”

 

The hall echoes with the warbled howl of Chewie’s reply, “ _And then you’ll nap, you stubborn brats!_ ”

 

“And then I’ll nap,” she rolls her eyes, holds out a hand to Poe and tilts her head in the direction of the galley. “You coming?”

 

Poe looks down at the hallway, rocks on his heels, and Rey falters, is about to tell him that he really doesn’t have to come, her mouth opening to speak when—

 

 _“Scavenger-girl, what the bantha-fucking shit did you do to my chair?_ ”

 

With a laugh that matches the one Rey tries to muffle by her palm, Poe takes her other hand, tugs her further from the cockpit, “Come on.”

 

\--

**Day Four**

It’s not until Rey finds an aggravated BB-8 trying to argue with a porg about appropriate levels of ship cleanliness that she realizes they have a bit of an infestation on their hands. The adorable little droid doesn’t realize it’s fruitless, and bleeps insistently as it follows the creature when it flutters off down a corridor.

 

Being the scavenger that she always will be, Rey spends the better part of the morning tracking for signs of life that aren’t humanoid or otherwise sentient or belonging to those who _should_ be on the Falcon, and eventually finds a cluster of the small, furry creatures native to Ahch-To nesting in one of the supply closets.

 

“Oh, now what are we supposed to do with you?”

 

Rey drops to a knee, careful not to startle a rather large porg that brought bundles of leaves and grass and twigs and dirt into the closet and turned it into a little home for one, two, no _three_ porglets, and the other two hatchlings still in their eggs.

 

The wide-eyed porg just trills at her before it goes back to squawking at BB-8.

 

Rey rolls her eyes and places her palm on the droid’s round side, “It’s all right, BB-8,” she says, gently nudging it away from the nest.

 

[Designation: Friend Rey, this is an improper use of Designation: Storage Cabinet 6A!]

 

“It’s not like they have much of a choice,” she laughs. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

[Designation: Friend Rey, they are going to make a farking mess!]

 

She is never going to get over how cute BB-8 is when it swears.

 

“This ship was plenty messy long before we got our hands on it BB,” and of course the neurotic little droid would be a neat freak too. What in the world was Poe thinking when he programmed it? “I’ll handle this. Do you think you can find me that portion of instabread I stashed away when we left Jakku?”

 

All those weeks and a hundred years ago.

 

BB-8 trills and twirls in a circle, [Of course, Designation: Friend Rey! I will return!]

 

It rolls off with another trill of happy beeps, and it’s not until the whirring of its base fades that Rey hears a very faint _clicking_ sound emanating from the nest.

 

Shifting to sit cross-legged, Rey scoots as close as she dares as leans in, finally pinpoints the sound as coming from _inside_ one of the eggs.

 

She tilts her head, looks at the largest porg, “Oh.”

 

Well, this is new.

 

The porg chirps again, and Rey watches it waddle through the nest, dislodging one of the fluffy little porglets so it can cuddle up next to the egg that’s clicking, and if Rey looks close enough, she thinks she sees the side of the egg begin to throb as its resident tries to break out.

 

A small crack appears in the side just as Rey hears the whirring that herald’s BB-8’s return, and it’s accompanied by a pair of footsteps that Rey’s beginning to realize she can identify anywhere.

 

Her suspicions are confirmed when BB-8 turns the corner, Poe following at its heels with the requested ration pack and a bowl of water in his hands.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

Poe shrugs and hands her the pack, sets the water on the floor next to her, “BB-8 wouldn’t leave me alone,” he answers around a laugh as he presses his palm to her shoulder, uses her to balance so he can drop next to her, his knee pressing against hers. “Said I shouldn’t miss out on the _miracle of life_?”

 

Rey laughs too, and points at the egg, which now has a small piece missing from it. She tamps down on her giggling when BB-8 chirps happily and rolls in excited circles just far enough away that it doesn’t scare off the mother porg where she’s cooing at the egg that’s clicking quietly back at her.

 

Poe’s hand slides off her shoulder, but instead of letting go, he lets his fingers gently rest against the leather wrap on her wrist.

 

She opens the ration pack onehanded, dumps the bread into the water and mixes it around with her finger, ignores the way the metal walls around her remind her of the long, endless evenings she spent doing the exact same thing in her AT-AT.

 

When it’s done reconstituting, Poe snags a bite of the instabread and pops it in his mouth, winces at the taste and chokes it down, “I forgot how awful that stuff is.”

 

“It used to be the only thing I could afford.”

 

Sometimes.

 

She tries to forget the times when the scavenging was so scarce that she couldn’t find _anything_ worth trading for food.

 

Poe winces, but doesn’t move his hand from her arm, fingers flexing gently around her wrist, “Yeah, I couldn’t imagine having to get used to that. You’re a better person than I am, Rey.”

 

There’s not much she can think to say to that, so she just shrugs and feeds a small piece of instabread to the smallest porg while another chunk of shell falls off the newest hatchling.

 

They sit and watch, and BB-8 comes up to Poe’s free side once it’s done rolling around in excited circles, leans its bulk against him as it watches the hatchling finally poke its head out of its shell.

 

“Rey?”

 

“Yeah?” She breaks off another small piece of instabread and feeds it to one of the porglets.

 

“How old are you?”

 

Her brow ticks as she looks at him from the side, but Poe tilts his head so she can only see the side of his cheek and his ear, which is going a little red. She shrugs, and a giggle escapes her throat when one of the other porglets nips at her fingertip, “I can’t be sure,” she says. “I’ve got to be almost twenty by now. Why?”

 

Poe opens his mouth to reply, but the only thing that comes out is a strained, mangled sound, so BB-8 interjects with, [Designation: Master Poe wants to know-]

 

But before BB-8 can finish, Poe hisses something in binary that Rey thinks means _shut up_ in a language she’s not familiar with. She tilts her head, and yes, Poe’s ear and the back of his neck are _definitely_ red under the Falcon’s harsh lights, and she watches him clear his throat and stare resolutely down at a broken piece of shell that tumbled out of the nest when the hatchling freed one of its wings, “I was born two years after the Battle of Yavin.”

 

Ah.

 

Rey resists the urge to roll her eyes, “And that made you what, three? During the Battle of Jakku? I may be a scavenger, but I _do_ know basic math,” she says, tries to tease, but part of her thinks she misses the mark.

 

“No, it’s not that,” it’s really difficult to hold back a grin at the way Poe huffs, finally pulls his hand from her wrist and swats at BB-8 when it chirps at him, not saying anything, but needling him all the same. “That’s not what I meant, I know you’re smart, Rey.”

 

She is, which is why she understands what the subtext of this conversation is apparently all about, and she’s not about to give into something so silly.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Poe Dameron,” she reaches out and squeezes his fingers for a heartbeat before she withdraws to her own space, save the way their knees are still pressed together. “There’s more than one way to quantify the experiences in a person’s life.”

 

Hopefully that’s a tactful way to tell him that she really doesn’t think it’s worth it to worry about something like the twelve years between them.

 

He goes quiet, and Rey watches him out of the corner of her eye until he finally looks at her, smiles, “Okay.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You with me, Flyboy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been SLAMMED this week, so that's why it took a little longer than expected to finish my last go-over of this chapter, but I am going to have NO time to get it posted this weekend, so here we are! Happy Friday friends!
> 
> PS I had THE SCENE (you'll know it when you read it) in my head for, oh, a good three days before I actually managed to write it and make it read like the way I imagined it.
> 
> Happy reading!
> 
> Prompt of the chapter from [The Fake Redhead.com](https://thefakeredhead.com/tfrs-prompt-library/)
> 
> Number 166 “You-you are-” 
> 
> “Beautiful, a genius, immensely talented-” 
> 
> “Dangerous.”

**Day Six**

The Falcon is four days out from—wherever the hells it is that they’re going—when Rose _finally_ fully regains consciousness.

 

It’s hard to miss the news, considering Finn practically shouts it around the ship until he’s told to calm the hell down by both Leia _and_ Connix.

 

Well, not in those exact words, but it was definitely implied.

 

When Rey finally has a chance to get up to the galley—after doing a systems check, because _someone_ has to make sure they’re not going to explode in a million tiny pieces, even during this small spark of a much-needed good thing—she finds Poe and BB-8 standing by the padded bunk Rose has been resting in, Finn perched on the edge by her shoulder.

 

Finn looks—at first, Rey has to rack her mind for the right word to describe the look on his face, but it’s, he’s _exuberant_ as she listens to him fill Rose in on everything that’s happened since she lost consciousness on Crait. His hands move as he speaks, and it sounds like he’s getting he’s getting to the part where Rey showed up and levitated all the rocks so they could escape the base.

 

And here Luke said that her defining moment as a Jedi _wouldn’t_ be about the things she can move with her mind.

 

Well, Luke _implied_.

 

It’s not like they spend _so much_ time together that she really learned all that much from him, during her short days on Ahch-To.

 

The sound she makes from her nose at the memory of Luke smacking her hand with that stupid pointy leaf—somewhere between a scoff and a snort—gets BB-8’s attention, and it bleeps and whirls around in place a couple times before reaching out with its pincher attachment.

 

It tugs on Poe’s sleeve, so he turns too, “And speaking of our hero,” he says, eyes going bright when he tilts his head.

 

When Rey steps into the space between Poe and Finn, she feels Poe brush his hand against her arm before he tucks both hands in his pockets and retreats so they’re just _slightly_ _more space_ between them. His ears have gone red again too—especially after he notices the look on Rose’s face—and they’re probably going to have to discuss that at some point.

 

“Rey!” Finn exclaims, eyes bright. “You’ve got to tell Rose about the time you cut Kylo Ren’s face in half!”

 

She grins. It’s a great memory.

 

Through the telling, Poe drifts away, which makes sense—he and Ben have a history that’s obviously messy and painful and Rey doesn’t like thinking about him and her failures either, but hearing about the fight taking place while Starkiller Base was imploding in on itself makes Rose smile, and that makes Finn smile, and Finn is her friend and she wants him to be happy. He’s been so worried these last few days, he deserves this, at the very least.

 

Rey takes Finn’s seat when he’s called away for a few moments to speak with General Organa.

 

“Sometimes I think he likes that droid of his more than he likes most people,” Rose says, her voice still a shaky whisper as she carefully sips at the cup Rey helps her hold up to her mouth.

 

They’re both watching the hilarious scene unfolding on the other side of the galley, where Poe is on his knees between BB-8 and R2-D2, trying to defuse an argument that’s somehow sprouted between the two strong-willed droids.

 

BB-8 brandishes its nerf-prod at R-2D2, who rocks on its struts, clearly goading the ball-shaped droid, and it’s about to roll at him before Poe puts an arm between them, “Hey! Cut that-OW!” He snatches his hand back and rubs at his arm where BB-8 got him. “Back off buddy, don’t make me reset you!”

 

Not to be deterred, BB-8 squawks something _very rude_ and whirls to the side so Poe is between it and R2-D2, and the old droid rocks on its struts again and garbles out something that is _definitely_ a curse that most droids aren’t programmed with.

 

Then again, that R2-D2 has seen some _shit_ throughout its lifetime.

 

Well, they all have, but R2-D2 somehow is a step above. It’s really a wonder.

 

Rey moves the cup away from Rose’s mouth, holds it against her thigh as she watches Poe admonish R2-D2 before turning and saying the same thing to his droid. BB-8 dips his head, makes a quiet whine through its bleeps, and she shakes her head as her eyes trail the robot out of the galley, “You’re definitely right about that.”

 

“But then there’s you and Finn,” Rose rasps, and part of Rey worries that she should be doing less talking and more resting. A lot more resting. “I’ve been around the Resistance a while, and I’ve never seen him like this before.”

 

“Really?” She asks before she can stop her traitorous brain from making her mouth make the sound, and her cheeks go hot as she drops her gaze down to her lap, strokes her thumbs back and forth over the rim of the cup.

 

Rose smiles, and her eyes flutter like she’s about to fall back asleep, before she shakes her head and shuffles so she’s sitting up a little more, “Really, really.”

 

Rey doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say to that, so she doesn’t, and they sit in silence for long minutes, watching people shuffle in and out of the galley, watching Finn talking with his hands as he tells General Organa something that has her smiling, watching Chewie clomp through with two of the porglets clinging to his giant shoulder.

 

“Has anyone told you how much Finn is like The Pilot?”

 

What?

 

Maybe Rose really isn’t doing as well as everyone thinks?

 

“Rose,” she says carefully. “Finn can barely aim a blaster, let alone fly a TIE. That’s why he needed Poe’s help to escape the Finalizer.”

 

“No,” Rose rolls her eyes. “Not _a_ pilot, _The_ Pilot.”

 

Rey shakes her head, “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“No one’s told you about The Pilot yet?” Rose looks almost appalled. “He was _the_ defector during the first war! Without him, the Rebellion would have never been able to get their hands on the first Death Star plans. I can’t believe no one’s told you the story yet! You’ve had days to talk about this!”

 

“It never really occurred to me to get the complete run-down of Rebellion history.”

 

Rose flaps her hands against her lap, “Well, we’ve got nothing but time now,” she breaks off and leans forward, and Rey drops the cup and scrambles to hold Rose by the shoulders so she doesn’t displace something important—like the bottom half of her _spine—_ or fall or something else she can’t think of that hurts her worse, “Hey Poe!” He looks over from where he’s still debating something with R2-D2. “Rey’s never heard the story of the Infiltration of Scarif!”

 

If Finn lit up just by having Rose finally regain consciousness, Poe almost _glows_ at the mention of what must be one of his favorite Old Rebellion stories, because he leaves R2-D2 with a pat on its dome and comes right back over, dragging a crate with him. He places it by the side of the bunk at Rey’s hip and plops down on it, his shoulder brushing against her leg, “It’s only one of the greatest stories that no one’s ever heard.”

 

Rey blinks at the matching looks of glee on Rey and Poe’s faces, boggles a little, “All right? And what does it have to do with _Finn_?”

 

“Only everything that’s ever had to do with Imperial defectors,” Rose laughs. “It all started decades ago, with a genius named Galen Erso, and the weapon the Empire asked him to build.”

 

They’ve only just started the story—the Rebellion executed a daring prison break to recruit a woman apparently named Lianna Hallick for a then-top-secret Operation Fracture—when Finn returns and perches by Rose’s blanket-covered feet, equally as enraptured by the story as he is with the woman telling it.

 

And while it is a fascinating story—especially when they get to the part where Lianna Hallick turns out to be Jyn Erso, Galen Erso’s missing daughter, and General Organa’s father, the legendary Bail Organa, showed up when she was being interrogated by former New Republic Chancellor Mon Mothma and an Intelligence agent named Cassian Andor—what Rey really can’t help but notice is how Poe is equally enraptured with Rose’s telling, and she can’t stop glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. His mouth is quirked in this little half-smile she’s not sure she’s seen before, and he’s listening intently with is elbows propped on his thighs.

 

What Rey’s not so sure of is if Poe has any idea that he’s been either running the back of his hand up and down the side of her calf or worrying the ends of her crosspieces between his fingers, and she can feel the warmth of his knuckles against her leg, even through the thick material of her leggings.

 

It’s not long after she notices that he’s doing that, that she sees a grin spread across Finn’s face, and when she tilts her head, he raises his eyebrows at her. She scowls, because if he says anything and spooks Poe away, she’s going to have to do something mean to him.

 

She doesn’t know what she’d do, but she’d think of something.

 

But in the end, it’s not Finn who startles Poe away, but a completely unapologetic Kaydel Ko Connix, who comes up, her hands clasped behind her back, “Excuse me, Rey?”

 

Poe’s hand drops from her leg, and Rey hears him clear his throat and run and hand through his hair, sees him shift away from her in a way she thinks he’s trying to go for natural movement and fails pretty miserably.

 

When she sees the mirrored looks of amusement on Finn and Kaydel’s faces—and can only assume that Rose is looking at them the same way—she scowls and dares for them to comment, “Yes?”

 

“Sorry to interrupt,” the look in her eye says that she absolutely is _not_. “But the lights are glitching in the aft smuggling compartment. Those of us bunking down there were hoping you’d be able to take a look, hopefully before ship’s night? I can sleep through a lot, but between the flickering and the buzzing, it’s a bit much.”

 

“It’s probably an issue with the wiring,” she thinks aloud as she racks her mind for what Unkar Plutt did in that corner of the ship that would make the lights act up like that.

 

But then again, it could just be that the ship is really old.

 

“I’ll see what I can do,” she slides off the bunk, her leg brushing against Poe’s as she shakes out the one she’s been sitting on.

 

He shifts back on the crate, gives her space to step away, and she gestures in the direction of the compartments belowdecks, “I could probably use a hand, if you’re not busy.”

 

“Of course he’s not busy,” Finn pipes up before Poe can, and he’s grinning like a kriffing loon. “None of us are busy.”

 

Rey rolls her eyes at him and turns back to Poe, who looks left, takes a moment to debate whether it’s in his sanity’s best interests to stay with Finn and Rose or hide out in relative private with Rey.

 

She knows which one she’d vote for.

 

And then he grins and nods, “Sure.”

 

They leave the galley, and Rey absolutely does _not_ see Finn bump his fist against Kaydel’s before she sits down on the crate Poe abandoned.

 

\--

It turns out the issue is a short in the writing in one of the far corners of the compartment, where the ceiling is only a few feet from the floor, but the bundle of wires Rey needs to get to is crammed up even higher, and she can’t both see if comfortably and fix the problem while sitting down.

 

The other issue is that if she does lift up into the tiny gap, she’ll lose the ability to fix it, because she needs one arm to hold her body up, but both hands to complete the repair.

 

She drops back to the deck with a grunt, lands next to Poe, who’s stretched out on his back with a flashlight in one hand and the repair kit spread open by his head, “How bad is it?”

 

“I can fix it if I can figure out how to get to the wires _and_ hold myself up there while I work.”

 

She is _not_ pouting. She’s not.

 

He spins a roll of electrical tape around his middle finger, “Can’t you just,” he makes a wordless gesture with that hand. “Use the Force?”

 

Rey hears a voice echo from _somewhere_ : “ _That’s not how the Force works!_ ”

 

It sounds like it could be Han, and that sends a pang through her chest.

 

“Do you know how much focus it took for me to move those rocks?” Poe’s eyes are bright like he’s laughing, and he shakes his head. “I’m not good enough to focus on lifting _me_ and making the repair.”

 

“Not _yet_.”

 

She tilts her head, “It’s going to take a long time.”

 

“I’m not worried.”

 

At least someone’s not.

 

Rey meets his smile with one of her own, but when the lights flicker again, she scowls back up at the un-paneled section where the wires are tucked away, “I’m not sure what the best way to go about this is,” the buzzing kicks back up again, a grinding whine that she feels all the way down to the roots of her teeth. “And that’s _really_ not helping me think.”

 

With a grunt, she drops her head in her hands, fingertips digging into her temples, and she vaguely hears Poe shuffle closer in the cramped space before his hand lands on her leg, squeezes it gently, “Hey, hey,” he rubs his hand up and down the curve of her calf. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. And if not, then they’ll live. It’s not that much longer before we get to,” he breaks off, shakes his head. “I promised the General I wasn’t going to ask.”

 

Rey huffs through her nose and looks down at Poe through her fingers before she scrubs them through her hair, cups her palms against the back of her neck, “I know. I can do this. Just give me another minute.”

 

Dropping her elbow against her thigh, Rey rests the side of her head against her hand, contorts the rest of her so she can see up and into the space, her eyes flicking back and forth as she looks for any place to get some leverage and—

 

“What about-” Poe starts, but breaks off when Rey sprawls out of the ball she curled into and shuffles up to the wall, stretches one leg up into the gap. “Uh, what are you doing?”

 

Without answering, she scoots down a little more, lifts her leg higher until her toes tap up against a narrow support strut. She kicks out, and the metal lets out a dull thud, but doesn’t give way, so it’ll probably support at least part of her never-properly-nourished body, “If I can find a way to keep the rest of me steady, I could get at the wiring,” she drops her shoulders back to the deck and turns to Poe. “I can climb up there, but I’ll need you to hold me up while I work. Can you do that?”

 

It’s a tight fit, but if he can shimmy under her, he should have enough space to hold her back.

 

“Won’t know until we try.”

 

After a few minutes of careful adjusting—and one time where Poe nearly drops Rey unexpectedly and her elbow digs into his sternum hard enough that he apparently loses the ability to breathe for a minute or two—she manages to get enough purchase in the gap to climb in, her arms wrapped around the support strut by her head, “This is where I need to be, does that work?”

 

Rey feels him settle under her back—there’s only about a foot between her back and his chest, and after a second, his broad palms press to either side of her spine, fingers stretching out all the way to her shoulders, “How’s this,” he grunts when she drops a little more weight onto him. “Try it now.”

 

Before letting go, she makes sure both feet are propped on the far support strut, and Poe holds up the rest of her, “Let me do this. It shouldn’t take long.”

 

“You’re good,” Poe’s fingertips dig into her back and—it actually feels kind of good, but Rey’s _really_ not going to think about that right now. “Take your time.”

 

While she strips one of the wires, a sharp edge catches on her fingertip, and she curses and sticks her bleeding finger in her mouth, “Damn it,” she curses around it, pulls her finger out of her mouth and drags it against her tunic, probably splotching blood on it, but it’s not like it’s not a mess already and—

 

Hopefully wherever they’re going has decent laundry facilities.

 

“You okay?”

 

“Fine, fine,” she pats a hand on her stomach, groping around for where she left her tools and curses again. “Where’d that electrical tape go?”

 

When Poe turns, she feels her far shoulder drop, and brings one hand back to the strut in case he has to shift away, “Hold on, I can get it.”

 

With one hand still braced against her back and really no way to see what Poe’s doing, Rey hears him drag the roll across the deck, and then he shifts back under her. His hand comes up to her side, and his palm brushes against her ribs as he places the tape on her belly, “Thanks,” she taps the back of his hand with her fingers, waits until he braces both hands on her back again before she released her grip and gets back to work.

 

She’s so intent on combining wires, stripping out the frayed, glitching bits and twisting them together, that she either doesn’t notice her foot slipping or ignores it until it drops off the strut and her heel lands in the middle of Poe’s shin, apparently hard enough that he nearly drops her again, “Shit,” he spits out a stream of curses in a bunch of different languages, and Rey loses her place in the wiring as she scrambles to keep the rest of her from falling. “Wait, no, I’ve got you, you’re fine.”

 

And she is, hasn’t actually fallen at all, Poe’s hands in place on her back, “Sorry, sorry,” she says, tries to blindly put her foot back up so she’s not hyperextending her hip. “You all right?”

 

“Been through worse,” Poe chuckles, and Rey resists the urge to wince because she _knows_ that’s true. “Hold on, stop moving your foot.”

 

She drops it back to the deck, grits her teeth at the strain on her hip, but then she feels the side of Poe’s foot tuck up against the back of her ankle, and he pushes up, guiding her foot back into place. She sighs in relief when the pressure on her hip recedes, “Thanks.”

 

He leaves his foot up next to hers, and Rey pushes the thoughts about the way they’re lying together right the hells out of her mind and turns her focus back to the writing, because she’s _almost got it_.

 

When she finishes wrapping the last bit of writing back together, the buzzing finally cuts off, and the lights in the compartment flicker once before they return to their usual strength and hold, “Got it!”

 

Getting down is a bit of an ungangly scramble, with Poe scooting out of the way the same time Rey drops down onto her side. He leaves on hand against her ribs to guide the way down, and they end up side by side on the deck, feet still tangled as Rey pushes the roll of tape off to the side, is about to reach up and put it back in the kit when she sees the way Poe is watching her.

 

Rey resists the urge to fidget, to look away, because they’re on their own in the compartment, hidden in a corner where it’d be hard to see that they’re there even if someone—like a nosy Finn or Kaydel—comes down looking for them.

 

“I think they’re all set.”

 

Poe bites down on his lower lip, nods like he’s distracted, and Rey swallows hard, tries to tamp down on the unfamiliar buzz of anticipation that’s suddenly fluttering around her stomach, “You with me, Flyboy?”

 

He nods, but instead of moving way, Poe shuffles forward until they’re nose to nose, the hand between Rey’s body and the floor curving higher around her ribs, his thumb tucking to the side near her breast. Rey’s breath catches when he cups her cheek, and she doesn’t dare move as Poe slowly leans in, brushes his mouth over the soft skin below her eye.

 

“Is this okay?” He asks, breath ghosting over her skin in a way that makes her shiver, and she just barely stops the moan building in the back of her throat, swallows it down.

 

Rey tries to answer but finds she can’t speak, so she nods, and her nose brushes against his jaw. Poe slides his hand off her cheek, down her arm and grabs her hand, fingers dragging over her palm before he lifts it to his mouth and kisses the healing scratch on the side of her index finger, eyes dark and wide as he looks up at her through his lashes.

 

The almost desperate noise that escapes her throat makes her cheeks heat, but Poe just smiles and leans back in, brushes his lips against the spot below her eye a second time, and then down to her jaw before he traces back with a lingering press to the side of her nose.

 

Their first _real_ kiss is an open-mouthed brush of his lips against hers, and it _wakes_ something inside of Rey she had long since assumed would just not be a part of something _she_ did with other people. She brings her fingers into the front of his shirt, brushes it over the spot on his sternum where her elbow hit before she brings him closer to her with a gentle tug. She presses her mouth back to his harder, tucks the foot tangled between his higher up around his calf.

 

She lets out a whimper when Poe deepens the kiss, his hand sliding around to the back of her neck so he can gently tip her to the side for a better angle, and Rey brushes her hand up and down his side when the hand slides into her hair, anchoring her to him.

 

When he finally breaks away, he doesn’t go far, just presses his parted mouth against her forehead and breathes, and Rey’s eyes flutter when he runs his fingers through her hair, mussing the bottom of the three buns she wrapped her hair into that morning. She swallows hard when she sees the fluttering of his pulse and brings her fingers to his neck, runs her thumb back and forth, grinning when he shudders.

 

“Still okay?”

 

Rey wants to nod, but that would mean dislodging his mouth from her forehead, so she clears her throat and tries to find her voice from wherever the hells it disappeared to, “Yeah, more than,” she murmurs, slides the hand on his neck up and back to toy with the shaved-short hair at his nape. “Much more than okay.”

 

Well, that sure wasn’t as eloquent as she’d hoped.

 

Fortunately, Poe seems to be just as dazed and out of it as she is, just responds with another kiss to her forehead, and the hand on the back of her neck tightens as his thumb tucks against the hinge of her jaw, “I don’t,” he sighs, his breath stirring at the short hairs on her hairline. “I don’t know how much to have to offer you. You’re so—and I’m-”

 

She shakes her head, cutting him off. Shifting up, Rey tugs his mouth back down to hers and kisses him again, quick and sweet, “I know I have even less to offer, but doesn’t matter,” she whispers against his mouth, and she can’t stop from brushing the tip of her tongue against his lower lip. “I may just be a scavenger from Jakku, but it _doesn’t matter_.”

 

Not if she doesn’t let it.

 

Poe makes a disagreeing noise in the back of his throat, and she feels it against her fingertips, “No, Rey, you’re so much more than that,” he kisses her again until she’s breathless and dizzy, clutches her to him. “Jedi or not or pilot of the Millennium Falcon or whatever the hells you decide to be, you’re always going to be more than just some scavenger.”

 

Her eyes sting and a lump forms in her throat, stealing her voice, so Rey nods, runs her hands through the curls on the side of his head, brushes her nose against his until the feeling passes, “Can you do me a favor?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“I might need to be reminded of that,” she swallows, looks away and feels sheepish, her face going hot from embarrassment. “From time to time. Maybe.”

 

Poe kisses her again, and Rey could happily get lost in the feeling of his mouth on hers, “Any time you need,” he murmurs against her lips.

 

And since privacy _is_ incredibly difficult to come by on a ship with this many people, Rey lets Poe deepen the next press of his mouth to hers, winds her leg tighter around his calf, only breaking away when she feels the vibrations on the deck that means a certain droid is fast approaching.

 

[Designation: Master Poe? Designation: Friend Rey? Have you completed the repairs on the electrical wiring in Designation: Aft Smuggling Compartment Number One?]

 

Poe makes a pained noise that might be a sigh and might be a whine, and Rey muffles her laugh as she runs her fingers through his hair when he tucks his head against her neck, “We’re almost done BB-8,” she says, swallows hard when Poe presses his mouth to the spot where her jaw meets her neck. “We’ll be out in a few minutes.”

 

[All right, Designation: Friend Rey!]

 

BB-8 makes another chirping bleep that isn’t actually part of any binary language that Rey is aware of, and she knows she should probably move away in case the little droid comes into the compartment, but Poe’s arms are warm around her and she really doesn’t feel like moving.

 

[My sensors indicate elevated heartrates from you and Designation: Master Poe. Is there I concern I should alert Designation: Best General Ever Organa to?]

 

“No BB-8!” She says quickly, chokes back a whine when Poe sets his teeth into the tendon in her neck, and she smacks at his shoulder, scowls at the way his low chuckle reverberates through her chest. “Everything’s fine! Nothing to worry about. We’ll be out soon!”

 

BB-8 makes another, considering bleep, and Rey hears it rock back and forth on the deck, just out of sight from where they’re lying, [All right Designation: Friend Rey! I will inform the others!]

 

And it whirls away as Rey grumbles, “We’d really rather you not,” but the droid doesn’t hear her, so the point is pretty much moot.

 

“I think we have five minutes before someone comes looking for us,” Rey gasps as Poe presses short, sharp kisses down the line of her neck.

 

She squeezes his side and Poe shifts back up, kisses her nose, tips his forehead against hers, “Better make them count.”

 

\--

**Day Eight**

The Millennium Falcon has run out of caf.

 

It’s all gone.

 

Yes, even the stash hidden in the back of the secret storage compartment in the captain’s bunk.

 

The less said about that discovery the better.

 

\--

**Day Ten**

Rey has a feeling that the sudden rise in the number of private moments she gets to share with Poe over the last few days have been masterminded by a neurotic, ball-shaped droid, a former Stormtrooper, General Organa’s Chief of Staff, and an injured mechanic, but she also—really doesn’t care.

 

She’s not going to _tell_ them that, but she appreciates the sentiments all the same.

 

Especially when she and Poe discover—while running the daily systems check—that there is plenty of room for both of them to sit in Chewie’s seat in the cockpit.

 

And they’re definitely _not_ going to tell him that.

 

Poe’s hands tighten on her hips as Rey shifts even closer to him, their chests already pressed together as she drops kiss after kiss over his parted mouth.

 

A warbling growl echoes down the hallway outside the cockpit, and Rey breaks away from his mouth, buries her breathless laugh against his neck.

 

“What was,” Poe looks more than a little dazed as he breaks off, hands clenching around her hips, and he actually _whines_ when she pecks him on the cheek and tries to slide off his lap. “I didn’t catch that.”

 

Rey mentally pats herself on the back for a pilot well distracted, laughs as she resettles and drapes her arms around his neck, tips her forehead against his, “Chewie announced to whoever might be interested that he’s coming up to check on things in the cockpit in about five minutes.”

 

Huffing a sigh, Poe scrubs a hand over his face, but that doesn’t keep Rey from seeing his cheeks go dark, “Nice of him to give us a warning.”

 

“Chewie has always been better than, say, _me_.”

 

Eyes widening, Rey sits up while Poe tries to twist around, but can’t see behind them because the seat is so large, meaning Rey is the one who has to face the _very smug_ Leia Organa, who’s standing in the entryway to the cockpit with her hands propped on her hips.

 

For a moment, Rey doesn’t dare breathe, but then Leia smiles. She doesn’t relax, but feels slightly less like she’s going to get into trouble for debauching the Resistance’s best pilot.

 

“You two figured that out quicker than I thought you would,” Leia says, and Rey goggles at her, cheeks hot as she holds back an indignant squeak. “I appreciate not having to endure you two dragging out any nonsense.”

 

Finally, Poe pushes Rey back far enough on his lap that he can turn his wide eyes to Leia, and she smirks and him before looking back at Rey, “I’m assuming this means my brother either did not care to share with you, or you do not care to follow, any of that stupid Jedi celibacy nonsense.”

 

As embarrassed as she is at being caught by _the_ Leia Organa, Rey’s brows fly to her hairline, “The Jedi _what_?”

 

“Luke must have not mentioned it then,” looking infinitely amused, Leia waves a dismissive hand. “Don’t bother with it. It’s never worked out well for Skywalkers or those adjacent to the family.”

 

“Uh-sure,” she mutters, still has _no idea_ what the kriff she’s talking about, but she’s _not going to ask_.

 

Poe finally shakes out of whatever innate power Leia has to stun people in their place, and he clears his throat, face and ears still bright red, “Is there anything we can do for you, ma’am?”

 

Rey feels Poe swallow as Leia steps into the cockpit, perches carefully on the seat behind the pilot’s chair, her hands delicately folded on her lap, “Well, you can very much _no_ t call me _ma’am_ , again, _Major_.”

 

“Of course not, General,” he says, eyes wide as he scrambles to sit back up and sketch as formal a salute as he can manage. “Uh, thanks, General.”

 

It’s then that they both realize Rey has been perched on Poe’s lap the _entire conversation_ , and she scrambles to the side and somehow—probably thanks to some untapped Jedi luck—manages to get into the pilot’s seat without falling to the deck in an embarrassing heap of limbs.

 

Like this isn’t embarrassing enough as it is.

 

Leia just sighs like she’s been suffering for a hundred years, “Don’t thank me yet, Dameron, we’ve got a long way to go before we’re back to where we need to be.”

 

“Of course. Whatever you need, General.”

 

Rey coughs, “Yeah, same.”

 

Oh gods, she should just stop talking. Forever.

 

Leia reaches forward, clasps a hand around Rey’s wrist, “First things first, we need to get you a functioning lightsaber.”

 

Frowning, Rey looks down at the broken pieces on the shelf behind Poe’s shoulder where she left it the other day, whenever that day was, “I’m not really sure how to go about doing that.”

 

“Well, it’s a good thing Luke wasn’t the only Force-sensitive member of my family, isn’t it?”

 

Rey’s eyes go wide as she looks at Leia, and then back to Poe, who looks a little stunned, but nods, “Okay,” she says, slow. “What should I do?”

 

“I’m expecting to get word from Maz Kanata. She should have some insights for you,” with a smirk, Leia stands, brushes the bottom of her tunic with her palms. “I was going to wait for her call, but I might as well leave you to it. Let me know when the transmission comes through.”

 

“We will,” Rey nods, turns back to the consoles and check to make sure their comm. system is still properly calibrated.

 

“Good. Oh, and Dameron?” Leia shakes her head as she stops just short of the threshold. “Keep in mind, you two are not the first couple to have a personal moment on this ship. Its memories go back a very long time. And they tend to _resonate_.”

 

Poe looks down at the toes of his boots, cheeks hot, and Rey resolutely looks at neither of them, “Right, ma’am.”

 

And then she’s gone.

 

When her footsteps finally fade, Rey loses her composure and falls back against the seat, buries her face in her hands as she laughs into her palms, “I can’t believe that just happened.”

 

“It’s like getting caught by _my mother_ ,” Poe groans, running a hand through his hair.

 

Rey cackles again, accidentally snorts and cups both hands over her nose, “I wouldn’t know what that feels like.”

 

“Just short of mortifying, actually,” he says, holds his hand out across the gap between their seats, and Rey wraps her fingers around his. “You’ll get used to it.”

 

Curling up in the seat, Rey settles back and looks down at their joined hands, remembers what Maz told her, that long-ago day when all she wanted was to enjoy the green on Takodana before going back to Jakku and waiting for her—waiting for the people who were never going to come back for her. “Looking forward to it.”

 

And she realizes, she really is.

 

They settle, hand in hand and waiting for whatever comes first, Maz’s call or their drop from hyperspace.

 

“So,” Poe starts, drawing her attention back to him. “Ready to face the galaxy again?”

 

Rey toys with Poe’s fingers, trails the side of her thumb over an old scar on the back of his hand, tilts her head and looks out to the stars streaking by.

 

“I think I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once I get through this weekend and get a few things off my plate next week, I will get myself back into writing, because I have MANY more Damerey fic ideas where this one came from. Which will my brain cooperate with? I don't know. It could be the five-times fic I thought of the first time I saw the movie, it could be the semi-angsty fic where Rey helps Poe learn to meditate, it could be the snow-themed funday fic inspired by Billie Lourd's homage to Carrie Fisher on the anniversary of her passing, or it could be the timey-wimey Rogue One crossover that I first thought up after watching both Rogue One and The Force Awakens back to back. Okay, it's probably not going to be that last one, because that one's definitely going to be both complicated AND long, but it's TOTALLY going to happen.
> 
> Happy weekend and happy reading Damerey fandom!
> 
> Prompt of the chapter from [The Fake Redhead.com](https://thefakeredhead.com/tfrs-prompt-library/)
> 
> Number 166 “You-you are-” 
> 
> “Beautiful, a genius, immensely talented-” 
> 
> “Dangerous.”

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter two is written and needs just another run-through, so expect it in a couple days!
> 
> Prompt of the chapter from [The Fake Redhead.com](https://thefakeredhead.com/tfrs-prompt-library/)
> 
> Number 141 “You know what? I’m going to take my spaceship and hide out on Mars until this whole war thing blows over.”


End file.
